marij disney

Marijuana Banned at The Happiest Place on Earth

Marijuana Banned from Disneyland and Disneyworld!         

Anyone caught bringing marijuana into the park or found smoking it on premises will end up in Disney Jail! Marijuana banned from Disneyland and Disneyworld indefinitely. According to High Times, Walt Disney World has forbidden Cannabis of all types from their parks in California and Florida.
Coincidently, marijuana just became legal in California and Florida. Despite the current legal state regulations Walt Disney World has continued their strict prohibition on alcohol and marijuana. Social perceptions have evolved over the years and Disney has kept an iron-grip on its ‘child friendly’ reputation.

What Else is Banned in Disney Worlds?

Cannabis and alcohol are not the only things banned in both resorts. Selfie sticks, drones and of course weapons of any kind are absolutely banned from both parks. Walt Disney World will continue to ban these items because their parks are attempting to cater to a broad family friendly environment.
Some religious schools, churches and other organizations that are not known to be progressive would stop attending both theme parks if they allowed the banned items. This makes up a majority of their sales. The Walt Disney corporation would lose millions of dollars if over half of their customers stopped attending.

Does Anyone Sneak-a-Toke?

Why yes, plenty of people attempt to sneak-a-toke. The wait time for several rides are hours long, and eating cannabis is easier to quickly ingest and get away with than smoking a joint. Others have reported taking a quick vape hit because it’s harder to spot who just took a hit or where the scent is coming from. So yes, there are lots of people who are sneaking bits and hits here and there.
Many people will still take a risk and consume cannabis somehow because they have legitimate ailments and cannot wait till the end of the day to consume marijuana in some form or another. In the end, ailments don’t just go away because it is an inconvenient moment to have them. People who use cannabis as a medicine simply won’t get to experience Disney magic unless they keep it under wraps.

weedstash

Top 10 Ultimate Weed Stash Hack

Maybe you have heard of a few or use these stash hacks yourself.

Maybe you have used similar stash hacks forever and didn’t realize others hadn’t. Whatever the case may be, here are the 10 best tricks in no specific order.

You need just the right amount of water.

Keeping weed at the optimal hydration level (about 55-65% relative humidity) can feel downright impossible. If left exposed to the open air, valuable terpenes are lost and flower will burn fast and hot. Overly dried flower also has the bad habit of crumbling into dust. Get it too wet and it won’t even smoke or worse yet, it could start to mold!
Once a stash has succumbed to things like molds, mildew, fungi or other pathogens, it is a complete loss. Don’t even be tempted to smoke the ones you “can’t see anything wrong with” if there is any evidence of corruption. The risks are simply too great to roll that dice. Drying out is an altogether different problem though.
Once a weed is dried out, it becomes harsh and burns up significantly faster. Nobody wants to smoke old, crumbly weed. We want sticky nugs that snap apart but slightly hold their shape when shoved in a bowl. Yet cannabis can be re-hydrated and return to being sticky. Many a stash has been saved by trying one of these following hacks. I have used all of them to keep my own stash in peak condition but each has its own time and place.

Citrus Boost!Lemon Skunk stash

Method: Take a small bit of citrus peel and stick it in with the weed. Must use real peels, extract doesn’t do the same.

Benefits: This hack infuses the citrus terpenes (like Limonene) into the cannabis. Since the peel has a high water content way higher than cannabis where cannabis should be at, it will rehydrate a dried out stash.

Drawbacks: Lemon peels rot. When they do, it creates the perfect breeding grounds for molds, fungi and other harmful pathogens. It can also over saturate cannabis of too much is added to a stash. This has the side effect of making the weed difficult to light and produce little smoke.

Q-Tip Quality!

Method: Simply wet a Q-tip (any cotton swab will work) and drop it in with the stash. Keep an eye on when it dries out so you can  reuse or replace the swab.
Benefits: This method preserves the unadulterated taste of pure cannabis. It also provides a low cost alternative (although way less cool) to getting a humidifier. Because swabs come sterile, mold issues are kept to a minimum if replaced often.
Drawbacks: Cotton swabs are disposable for a reason. Reusing swabs leads to cross contamination and can also be a breeding ground for mold, fungi and other pathogens.

Cotton Balled!landrace 2

Method: Similar to the Q-Tip method except that a moist cotton ball is taped to the top of the container. Reuse or replace once it dries out.
Benefits: Taping the cotton ball to the top of the container keeps it from coming in contact with the stash. This prevents cotton fibers from getting caught in the bud and limits cross contamination. Cotton balls also come sterile so there is no risk of additional contaminants being introduced to the stash.
Drawbacks: Replacing tape over and over can get to be a chore so it is tempting to simply reuse the cotton ball for extended periods. Doing so exposes the user to the same dangers of mold, fungi and pathogens through cross contamination.

You also need the right kind of storage.

Regardless if the stash comes from a legal dispensary, a guys basement or Snoop Dogg himself, you need somewhere to store it. In the old days, Ziplock baggies were the standard. Today, people can obtain legal cannabis from dispensaries that use medicine bottles. While the medicine bottle is mandated by many states for sales, they still suck for keeping a stash. Here are a few suggestions for ways to store weed that is better than the old Ziplock or medicine bottle.

Mason Jar Madness!

Method: this glass container is sold in most stores across the world. This is a simple glass vessel with threading that allows a metal ring and lid at the top. It is air/watertight, reusable and cheap.
Benefits: They comes in several sizes, produce and airtight and watertight seal, and are easy to store or obtain almost anywhere. In addition to that, they are easy to clean, don’t rust or otherwise break down over time.
Drawbacks: Glass is fragile and has a tendency to break when exposed to extreme temperature changes.

Divided Stash Storage!

Method: Use two different sized containers to store your stash. The first is a small “daily” jar that keeps what you typically consume in a day. The second is “the vault” where you store your remaining cannabis. Load bowls from the daily jar and only open the vault when needed.
Benefits: This method reduces stash moisture loss from cycling the air in the jar. It helps budget or regulate the amount of product consumed in a day. This method also helps maintain stash security by not advertizing you have a pound of weed every time you load a bowl.
Drawbacks: Unnecessary if you get a jar that is too small or don’t buy more than a day or two worth of product at a time. It also adds one more step to the smoking ritual.

Freeze!

Method: Take any amount of cannabis you don’t plan to use immediately and put it in the freezer in a sealed container. Freezer bags are commonly used for this method. Freezing the weed prevents loss of hydration over extended periods.
Benefits: People have stored weed in freezers/fridges for years and still had a pleasant experience. Freezing cannabis makes trichomes brittle and easy to break off for ice wax and other concentrates.
Drawbacks: Just like meat, weed can get freezer burn if it is not sealed correctly. Cannabis can also be exposed to many bacteria and other pathogens from decaying food nearby (I’m looking at you Strawberries!) so keep a tight lid on it. Frozen trichomes also break off much easier than at room temperature.

Silicone Serenity!

Method: Instead of glass or plastic, use a silicone container. There is a wide variety available online, at dispensaries or at head shops built to suit your needs.
Benefits: Silicone wont shatter/rip/shred/cut/melt under normal use. It is even safe to touch with a warm dab tool when frozen (just not a red hot tool). Wax and other concentrates can’t stick like they do to glass or plastic. They also come in a wide variety of colors and shapes.
Drawbacks: Can be very expensive, especially when getting something airtight and cool looking.

We have all had times when there isn’t enough to go around.

Sometimes there is more month than money and we are faced with some hard choices. Do you share what you have and possibly spend days without THC or keep it for yourself? These tips can help you make that decision without alienating yourself or getting caught holding out. Just don’t get mad if someone else uses these tips too. It’s just a matter of making the most of what you got.

Twice Smoked Weed!

Method: This requires that you can suspend you weed in the pipe itself (best with screened metal pipe). You store a nug in the middle of the pipe so that every hit has to pass over the nug before making it into the users mouth.
Benefits: The stored nug gets coated with a layer of resin (poor man’s wax) and therefore gets additional THC added to it. It also makes it easy to carry around a second bowl for personal use if you are limited on how much you can share.
Drawbacks: Your delicious weed gets coated in resin. The terpene profile is destroyed and if left for several days, the nug gets dried out. Can make smoking the stored bud feel really harsh.

Double Cup It!

Method: Using two soft drink cups (one small, the other medium) you place the stash in the bottom of the larger cup. Put a lid on the smaller cup and then place it inside the larger cup. It now looks like you simply have a medium drink.
Benefits: This method is almost undetectable without physically removing the lid or getting help from a canine. Larger cups also hold progressively larger quantities for those long road trips to base camp. Works especially well for stealthily moving concentrates
Drawbacks: Limited on size to about an eighth to a quarter ounce of flower. Also doesn’t provide an odor barrier by itself so additional precautions are needed if that bad is stanky.

Grind it!

Method: If you want to make a little bit go further, you can grind it. This is especially helpful with dense, tightly packed nugs. You can use a small chunk of herb as a screen to cover the bowl hole which prevents the ground material from being sucked through.
Benefits: Increased surface area makes weed burn better and produce denser and more flavorful smoke. It also increases the overall volume which can turn a single small nug  into two small bowls.
Drawbacks: It can be easy to suck it though the bottom of the bowl so a screen of some kind is needed. Ground product burns faster than solid nugs and dries out faster. Grinding also releases many of the terpenes trapped within a nug so don’t grind more than you are going to smoke in one sitting.
I hope these tips were helpful. Be sure to share them with friends if you liked them. I would love to know what tricks you use to keep your stash safe and in top condition. Thanks for reading.

wrr

Light and How Cannabis Consumes It

In the eons before dinosaurs, plants dined on light.

During the early formation of our planet, there was no oxygen to breath, only water and light. This paradise of water and photons gave rise to the first plants. Not like the orchids and redwoods we are accustomed to today, early plants were mostly algae in the early oceans. These early plants developed a way to transform light into food.
By using sunlight to convert light energy into chemical energy, plants were able to store it for later use. Although photosynthesis is performed differently by different species, the process always begins when energy from light is absorbed by proteins called reaction centers that contain green chlorophyll pigments.
In plants like cannabis, these proteins are held inside organelles called chloroplasts, which are most abundant in leaf cells. In the light-dependent reactions, one molecule of the pigment chlorophyll absorbs one photon and loses one electron. This electron is passed to a modified form of chlorophyll called pheophytin and the process propels a chain reaction of life.
cannabis lights

Plants can use light from across the visible spectrum for photosynthesis.

Yet some wavelengths of light are more useful to a plant than others. Wavelengths that the plant uses a lot of get absorbed into its leaves and stem while wavelengths they don’t use get reflected back. We only see plants as green because they don’t use green light energy. They reflect the one color they don’t photosynthesize so we perceive them as green.
Because of how plants evolved their ability to photosynthesize, different wavelengths are needed in greater amounts at certain stages of a plant’s growth, such as the blue and red. Light high in the blue range enhances vegetative growth, while red light strongly influences flowering and fruiting.
What we perceive as visible light is comprised of seven main colors. All the odd colors we see like pinks, browns, and beiges are just mixtures of other colors. Our eyes can only register wavelengths of light are within the 400 to 700nm range. Below 400nm, we move towards ultra violet, x-ray and finally gamma rays. Above 700nm is infra red, then microwave and finally radio waves.

Let’s start with some measurements.

Nanometres (nm) are a measurement of light waves. Each degree in Kelvin (°K) rates the ‘temperature’ of a light and offers an indication to the peak nanometers (nm) or color within the spectrum. The lower the nm, the more blue the light appears while higher numbers look red.
Marijuana uses light from approximately 420nm through to 750nm. But what does that mean? To understand the unique diet of cannabis (and make those real yield gains) we need to create the ideal environment for the plants.
Giving them just any light simply won’t do if the goal is heavy crops (and who doesn’t want that?). Normal incandescent bulbs produce more high energy wavelengths like infra red (heat) and midrange light (550-650nm) than anything else. Anyone who has tried to grow a plant in a room lit only by incandescent bulbs can attest to their poor performance so avoid trying to grow with them.

Even light in the right wavelength may not have the right amount of lumens.

Cannabis need light from the right part of the spectrum with the right amount of intensity to encourage proper yet fast growth. Marijuana evolved to grow under sunlight which changes intensity over the seasons. Young weed plants can be easily burned if put under the same intensity of light as a mature ones.
For this reason, many cultivators use different lighting techniques for the different stages of plant growth. Fluorescent lights produce the right wavelengths for growth but lack the intensity of other lighting options making them the standard for use with seedlings and young clones. HPS (High Pressure Sodium) and MH(Metal Halide) are industry standard lighting options that are used during vegetative and flowering stages although LED (Light Emitting Diode) are quickly establishing themselves as premium lights in the market.
HPS light

There are a few different types of light.

HPS lights offer light from approximately 540 through to 700 nm, typically yellow, amber and red light so they are great for flowering/budding marijuana. These lights tend to burn hot and need to be ventilated as well as hung from a decent distance from the plants. This makes having a tall area to grow in a priority. Luckily, the light produced by HPS lights penetrates deeply into thick canopies which is perfect for the flowering stage when buds and leaves are competing for room.
MH lights offer light from approximately 350 to 550 nm in the blue, green to yellow range.  However exact levels depend on what lamp your purchase as some lamps are ‘cooler’ and others a bit ‘warmer’ than average. MH lights are good for the vegetative stage but not as much for the flowering/bud stage.

Lighting is going high tech.

LED grow lights can have a mix of LED diodes in a single ballast or specialized ones. This gives cultivators one more variable to work with but it also opens up a whole world of adjustment. With the increased lifespan of diodes over bulbs, reduced energy consumption and lower heat production, it is easy to see why cultivators are switching to LED.
While LEDs are far more efficient then HPS or MH lights (with almost 30% savings reported on average) they come with a significantly higher initial price tag. Small projects and weekend cultivators may not want to shell out the cash needed to obtain a quality growing LED but commercial outfits normally opt to go with the reduced energy consumption and quickly make back the difference in initial price.
LEDs also have the benefit of not needing specialized heat venting as they produce almost no heat.  While HPS and MH lights require ducting, fans and additional controllers, LED lights don’t need any of that while providing a dynamic mix of color temperatures. The best LEDs are full spectrum and use some blues, some reds and a very stable white to create broad (full) spectrum LED grow light. These are the new breed of grow light and cover the full light range from around 420 through 750 nm.

SuperCropping

Super Cropping: Why It's the Best Ever

What is Super Cropping exactly?

Super cropping (also supercropping) is the name for a High-Stress Training (HST) technique where the plant is stressed by slightly hurting it in a strategic way. Super cropping is basically just a coined word for growing a bush-like plant by crushing its stems instead of cutting them off. This technique can be performed on virtually every cannabis plant (excluding autos) and can actually be done multiple times during the vegetative process.
Super cropping is most effective with 600 watt lights or bigger because they allow good light penetration. If growing a bush style plant from clones, it’s important to top the plant right after the clone roots. Doing so will provide a strong base where the extra branches start low on the trunk.
Cannabis plants become stronger after recovering from trauma. Things like bent or crushed stems can become even larger and stronger than undamaged stems. If the main cola (flower) of a cannabis plant is removed, the plant will put energy into growing the remaining colas. Each super crop basically  doubles the number of potential colas on a plant.

What Does Super Cropping Do?

After super cropping the plant will grow bushier, produce more buds, and possibly even produce more THC! This is how the plant naturally responses to danger and protects itself. Growers take advantage of this technique to get bigger yields and more potent buds than would be produced otherwise.
If the goal is to harvest the biggest and the best buds, you should actively stress the plant in a way that will result in an increase in the production of cannabinoids. If the aim is to get a better harvest, “super cropping” is by far the best method of stressing your marijuana before harvesting.
Of the 483 known compounds in Cannabis, Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive component of cannabis and produced in the plants trichomes. The second major component is CBD. It is also considered to have a wider scope of medical applications than THC because of study results in treating epilepsy, anxiety disorders, nausea etc. Both are produced in greater amounts by plants that have been properly super cropped.
Super Cropping Bud

How do we ‘stress’ the marijuana plant?

Super cropping works along with Low Stress Training, or LST. LST is the simple process of training your cannabis plant to grow laterally. This is usually done by tying down the branches of the plant to stop it from growing vertically. Light is one of the most important factors contributing to the growth of a plant so when it comes to cannabis, light dictates when a plant produces its flowers and how well those individual buds develop.
The main idea of super-cropping is to get marijuana to expose as many branches as possible to direct light and induce the plant to produce more leaves, buds and flowers. To apply the method, a certain amount of stress must be applied to your plant.
By exerting gentle pressure firm enough to slightly damage the tissues, a grower can intensely escalate marijuana yields. Because of the special stress response that takes place within the plant, the risk of infection or splitting is also minimized.

The technique is really simple.

Choose the most suitable branches you want to super crop. Start by doing only a few branches at a time, you will make sure that the plant reacts well to the stress technique. Remember that the goal is to stress the plant, not kill it.
After selecting the spot, gently hold the branch between the thumbs and forefingers of your hand and while gently exerting firm pressure, soften the inner tissues and carefully roll the branch between your fingers until stem feels limp in that spot.
A severely damaged branch may be beyond natural repair, especially if the branch is visibly split. Applying grafting tape or Duct tape will help to strengthen the damaged branch during the healing process.

Super Cropping takes advantage of natural processes.

When it’s time for a plant to flower, the size of the buds it produces is largely dependent on light exposure. The more light (in the right wavelengths) a certain part of the plant canopy gets, the stronger and bigger it is likely to be. That’s why the crown of a plant usually has denser, bigger flowers than the bottom.
Super cropping allows you to manipulate a plant and its canopy for maximum exposure. By ensuring the entire canopy gets evenly exposed to light, growers encourage it to build big, dense buds. This is true even in areas normally be covered by foliage.
For its own survival, the plants growth mechanism will cause it to ‘set’ the break and keep the limb in place after it is done healing. Arranging super cropped tops horizontally creates an environment for increased bud production as colas that would have been under the main cola are exposed to direct light.

Super crop at the right time.

Be really careful because this method is designed to induce the plant to throw out a greater number of colas and new leaves. Being too aggressive can have seriously negative results.  Following the logic of nature, this method works because the plant is deceived into believing that it is under attack by some force and therefore it will compensate.
In the process of healing, the branch will grow a protective nodule to strengthen the damaged area. This ensures that transpiration of essential nutrients and water are not restricted. Growing the nodule is a key step of maintaining the overall health of the plant.
Since this technique requires time for the plant to heal, the best time to super crop is in the plants’ vegetative or growing stage. During the second or third week of growth will likely be most effective time. How will you know? When the plant produces vigorous new branches but has not yet fully started the flowering stage, it’s time.
By super cropping, cultivators enjoy shorter and more controlled plants that produces a great number of branches and buds. Even though the plant needs more time to recover, proper super cropping does not retard the growth of the plant like pruning of the tops or picking leaves to induce growth.

medica marijana

Sold: Starting a Medical Grow Business

Before starting a medical grow business, you need to do a ton of research.

Federal, state and local laws create a vast web of interconnecting rules that are unique to each medical grow (even if they are in the same city and industry). Navigating this miasma is both arduous and tedious by design but is also vital to remaining in business. The best place to start is with your states official rules.
You can’t simply put some seeds in backyard dirt or throw thousands of dollars around and expect to get anything competitive out of it. And this is a competition. The time, effort and skill needed to get a plant from seed to sale is a skill that can be developed over several years. A skilled hand can take a good strain and make it great while an unskilled grower can kill everything.

But it takes more than growing the dankest buds to survive.

Growing great herb is a prerequisite to a business based around growing weed. But equally important is the ability to manage costs and duplicate results. It doesn’t matter how much you can sell your product for. If it costs more to produce than what you get, it isn’t a viable business.
“Even if you get your costs under control, you still have to worry about duplication. If you can’t produce the same product every time, you have a problem.” Mike Boynton, the master grower for Oregon Imperial farms told me in an interview. “Changing anything in the environment from fan placement to light duration will change how your plants grow and therefore your bottom line.” The more people and the bigger the farm, the harder it is to control costs. If you can’t get it under control with 5 plants, you will never be able to with 5000.

The Marijuana industry is an especially challenging one.

Getting a business off the ground in the weed industry is a lot harder than most other industries. Cannabis is one of the oldest crops known to man and you can bet there are a lot of talented people out there trying to do it better and cheaper than you. Besides having to deal with the standard problems of location and competition, cannabis businesses are heavily regulated and lack traditional support infrastructure like banking services.
Marijuana businesses lack the ability to use banking services because it remains federally illegal. This is not to say that banks refuse drug money. SBC was fined $1.9 billion by the U. S. government for laundering cartel drug money in 2012. Yet the cannabis industry is forced to work on a cash basis regardless of how big the costs.

There are a variety of rules regarding how to grow legally.

With over half of the nation having legal weed in one form or another on a state level, there have been many ideas about what should be allowed. Each state has taken different measures to ensure a safe and effective cannabis industry. Some states require seed to sale tracking and vertical integration while others prohibit delivery or drive-thu services.
In addition to rules and regulations about where and how to provide services, there are also rules around what kind of equipment is needed in order to get a license. This further compounds the complexity with many states have a different set of rules for medical grows and recreational operations. As an example, Washington merged their medical grow and recreational grow rules for a single comprehensive program while Oregon kept them separate.

After all, growing weed isn’t cheap.

Even in places with ideal growing conditions like Northern Cali, Florida or Hawaii, plants still need water, nutrients and protection from pests/diseases. In areas where the weather is too dry or cold, growing indoors becomes a necessity. The cost of equipment pales in comparison to the cost of keeping the growing environment perfect.
In addition to lights; pumps, timers, fans, filters and air conditioners all use electricity. Keeping the juice flowing can be a challenge in itself. Grows with more than one room may even need to have a more powerful line run by the electric company to keep from blowing transformers. All of these little additions add up quickly and can quickly eat up all the potential profit.

A lawyer, an accountant and a lobbyist walk into a grow room.

If you plan to operate a successful company growing a federally illegal substance, you need to have some specific talent on your team. This team needs at least a lawyer, an accountant and a lobbyist to run interference while the head grower does their work. Without someone covering each area, the chance of getting blindsided is astronomical.

Lawyer

Find someone who specializes in canna-based business compliance and criminal cannabis defense. Ask others in your area who they recommend. Don’t forget to check online databases like www.martindale.com, www.avvo.com, www.justice.org to name a few.

Accountant

Look for someone with experience in the industry. Overly “creative” accounting can get you in hot water so make sure you can trust them. In addition to searching online for local tax professionals, ask colleagues for referrals. Asking others in your area who they use and why is also a great way to narrow the search for the right accountant.

Lobbyist

Look for someone with the time and energy to represent your cause. Their job is to keep an eye on local and statewide changes that pertain to your business. They are also there to help prevent others in the community from effectively banning your business or engaging in sneaky tactics to close you down. There are no lists/registries for this, gotta tap into that network to find the right person..

Head Gardener

Look for someone with botany experience. Many master gardeners hang out in local hydro stores or are at least known by them. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and be picky. This is the person who will dictate the initial and final quality of the product and choosing the wrong person can have dire consequences.

Skipping the support staff can have dire consequences.medical grow

Many states ban the operation of any marijuana based business (including a medical grow) within a certain radius of schools. But most states don’t ban schools from opening near a marijuana businesses. There is normally nothing explicitly stopping a preschool from opening next to a dispensary or grow location and putting you out of business.
A good team is the difference between closing up shop or staying open for years. It does you no good to spend millions of dollars on a medical grow business just to have a preschool open next door a week later and shut you down. Better to have the staff on hand to stay open and deal with the issue before it gets finalized than not.

You need to find just the right spot.

Besides schools randomly popping up, there is a lot to consider when starting a grow business. The first thing most growers work out is where they plan to grow. Most medical grows are done on a personal consumption scale. If the plan is to make it profitable, it takes a bit more consideration.
Because cannabis remains federally illegal, landlords are almost as hesitant as banks are to work with weed entrepreneurs. Even in the case of a medical grow, it can be almost impossible to get permission to start. In most cases, growers need to own the land/building they plan to operate in or receive written permission from the land owner before getting licensed.

Security is a major concern as well.

Each state has very specific rules on which types of security are needed for a medical grow to remain in compliance. States may require barriers like walls be erected around grow sites. They also might require closed circuit cameras linked to cloud backups but it depends.
Whole sectors of the economy have been dedicated to the outright eradication of cannabis for decades (I’m looking at you Big Prison, Pharma and Tobacco). As cannabis moves from illicit trade to regulated market, there is bound to be pushback from entrenched interests. Even a medical grow can face opposition from local religious or political groups that don’t like cannabis.

The market is growing.landrace 2

More and more people are getting in on the Green Rush and starting to grow cannabis. Like the Gold Rush that sparked westward expansion, the hype and obvious wealth being generated is causing a migration of talent and willpower. Fortunes are waiting to be made by talented and driven individuals willing to put in the work.
In the end, most of the states where weed has been legalized were ballot measures which means they were supported by voters. With the majority of the population clearly supporting cannabis reform, cannabis is primed to continue growing for years to come. Getting a good team will make every other part of the process easier.

Do you agree?

Or do you think I’m off my rocker? What advice would you give to someone just getting started? What do you wish you knew before starting a medical grow? Let us know in the comments down below. We would love to hear your take. And as always, thanks for reading.

weed drive

Accidents and the Dangers of Driving on Weed

Most people have been taught that alcohol increases the risk of accidents.

Smoking and driving can get you a DUI for an accident even in states where cannabis is legal. Current state laws for marijuana have focused on regulating it like alcohol while on the road. This is especially true when it comes to consuming and driving. Yet evidence of marijuana’s culpability in on-road accidents is difficult to prove.
Many states have reduced penalties for cannabis related crimes over the last few years. Yet as states continue to loosen regulations on marijuana safety, law enforcement is struggling to figure out how to establish a legal limit for drivers. They have focused on setting a blood-content test just like the .08 limit for alcohol.
A new study shows the challenges in accurately testing drivers.
One of the most difficult parts of testing is developing a threshold for what’s considered too high to drive. The conductors of the study concluded that “THC concentrations drop rapidly during the time required to collect a blood specimen in the U.S., generally within two to four hours.”
The low amount of time cannabis remains active for oral tests using the drivers’ saliva make it harder to fail than traditional tests. Saliva tests can be done roadside without a long wait but researchers found oral tests don’t provide “a precise measure of the level of impairment.”
Politicians are hesitant to implement concentration-based cannabis-driving legislation because it might ” unfairly target individuals not acutely intoxicated, because residual THC can be detected in blood for up to a month of sustained abstinence in chronic frequent smokers.” Depending on the direction that the new Attorney General Jeff Sessions takes the Justice Department over the coming years, detecting residual cannabinoids may be more important than registering intoxication.

Smoking weed is not safe while driving.

Cannabis intoxication has been shown to mildly impair a drivers psychomotor skills. It doesn’t appear to be severe or long lasting though. In driving simulator tests, this impairment was typically manifested by decreasing driving speed and needing more time to respond to emergency situations.
Yet this impairment does not appear to play a significant role in on-road traffic accidents. A review of seven different studies involving 7,934 drivers showed in 2002, “Crash culpability studies have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes.” And it’s not like people haven’t tried to prove a link either.
A Massive body of research exists that explores the impact of marijuana on psychomotor skills and actual driving performance. Researchers have done driving simulator studies, on-road performance studies, crash culpability studies, and reviews of the existing evidence. To date, the result of this research has shown how mildly cannabis affects driving abilities but that won’t stop the cops from hauling you off for having it in your system if you get in an accident.

Bad accidents

Marijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills.

Yet it does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol. Researchers conducting a study for the National Institute on Drug Abuse said alcohol “significantly increased lane departures/minimum and maximum lateral acceleration”. Cannabis did not have the same correlation between consumption and decreased performance.

Researchers for the Highway Traffic Safety Administration funded study concluded Cannabis-influenced drivers are better able to measure their intoxication “may attempt to drive more cautiously to compensate for impairing effects, whereas alcohol-influenced drivers often underestimate their impairment and take more risk.”

People keep studying the link between cannabis, alcohol and car accidents.

The prevalence of both alcohol and cannabis use and the extreme morbidity associated with car crashes has lead to repeated research on the link between the two. According to another study, “drunk drivers are involved in 25% of motor vehicle fatalities, and many accidents involve drivers who test positive for cannabis.”
The researchers say that while both alcohol and cannabis impair performance in a “dose-related fashion” the “effects of cannabis vary more between individuals than they do with alcohol because of tolerance, differences in smoking technique, and different absorptions of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana.”
The effects of a cannabis “high” vary according to dose but are more pronounced with highly automatic driving functions than with more complex tasks.” Basically making it easier to focus on a plan than instinctively react to something. With alcohol the opposite pattern of impairment is produced and people get distracted easier.

Cannabis and alcohol have a synergistic effect.

Because of an increased awareness that they are impaired, “marijuana smokers tend to compensate more effectively while driving than drunks” by utilizing a variety of strategies. Mixing marijuana with alcohol removes the ability to use such strategies as the two substances increase the potency of the other when mixed.
Cannabis and alcohol work on many of the same levels in the brain and both inherently affect chemical production in the brain. Mixing cannabis and booze will amplify the effects of both and can lead to serious repercussions. While studies have been inconclusive regarding whether cannabis use causes an increased risk of accidents; in contrast, unanimity exists that alcohol use increases the risk of crashes.
In addition, the risk from driving under the influence of alcohol and cannabis together is higher than the risk of driving under the influence of either alone. One study even recommends that patients who smoke cannabis wait several hours before driving, and avoid combining the two drugs.

Even schools have studied how dangerous driving while high is.

The first study to analyze the effects of cannabis on driving was conducted by Researchers at the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator, sponsored by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The researchers found that cannabis use caused almost no impairment. The impairment that it did cause was similar to the change observed while under the influence of a legal alcohol limit. They basically couldn’t get cannabis to impair driving as much as one beer.
They tested impairment mainly with a simulator. “Once in the simulator—a 1996 Malibu sedan mounted in a 24-feet diameter dome—the drivers were assessed on weaving within the lane, how often the car left the lane, and the speed of the weaving. Drivers with only alcohol in their systems showed impairment in all three areas while those strictly under the influence of vaporized cannabis only demonstrated problems weaving within the lane.”

More research is needed to find the right limits.

All these study’s findings show that alcohol is a much more dangerous drug than cannabis yet regulated in a more relaxed manner. While driving while under the influence of cannabis can still get you locked up, it is unclear how dangerous it is. More research is needed to show exactly how much cannabis should be legally allowable but for the time being, driving after consuming any cannabis remains illegal.
Until the whole world switches over to autonomous vehicles and we don’t have to worry about driver error any more, people are still going to get into accidents (sober or not). It is best not to contribute to the problem and simply don’t drive while high. You never know when you might need to instinctually react to something in your lane. Thanks for reading.

dea

DEA: Marijuana is Not a Gateway Drug

Marijuana has been called a gateway drug for over 80 years.

The battle lines were drawn long before anyone currently driving the gateway debate had assumed power. Political figures have demonized cannabis and those who consume it for almost a century and worked to create a massive industrial prison complex designed to harvest people. Low income and minority people have borne the brunt of the assault.
Americans have been tricked into accepting the most ridiculous claims about cannabis and a whole generation of people have grown up behind bars because of it. Politicians have used slippery speech to sway public opinion and outright changed the law in order to suite their desires for decades. When Reagan and Clinton enacted laws that put more people in jail than the Romans had slaves.
Larry Anslinger didn’t care about how many would suffer without the healing properties of cannabis, he was motivated by an zealous hatred for the plant to create the movie Reefer Madness. President Nixon was motivated by a religious desire to punish people regardless of what his own investigators proved. Reagan had no mercy for people caught in the crossfire when he enacted draconian mandatory punishments for minor drug infractions.gateway

We stand at the dawn of a new era of American drug policy.

Despite an abundance of empirical evidence about the medical benefit of cannabis from reputable medical professionals from the Shafer Commission to Sanjay Gupta, it remains a schedule 1 controlled substance. This classifies weed as having “no medical benefits” and creates massive hurdles for scientists and doctors looking to research cannabis. It also puts it in the same medical category as heroin.
With the rise of Trump and the appointment of Jeff Sessions to Attorney General, the entire industry is bracing for another impact. Part of the collective wince comes from the evasive actions of top officials on the matter through election season. Instead of giving clear messages about how they plan to pursue policy, government officials are as vague as possible about how they plan to pursue policy.
This evasive attitude has made many wary of the how the Trump Administration plans to deal with cannabis. Statements in the past by Jeff Sessions like “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” and his past issues of discriminatory prosecution during the Civil Rights movement has helped to stir up old debates.

The debate surrounding legalizing marijuana has resurrected the Gateway Theory.

This theory presumes that experimenting with marijuana inevitably results in the use of harder drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Until recently, the DEA website contained dozens of lies and inaccuracies and it begrudgingly changed them only after being threatened with legal action.
Many people don’t know that it is illegal for federal agencies to spread incorrect information. Yet when it comes to cannabis, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been doing it for years. In less than a month, a petition from Change.org calling on the DEA by a to stop lying about medical cannabis received 85,000+ signatures.
The petition was started by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nonprofit organization working to increase access to medical cannabis. “The DEA has actually admitted that the theories that cannabis use leads to harder drugs (gateway theory), long-term brain damage, psychosis, and other alleged harms, are not based in scientific fact, and yet they keep distributing this false information”, says ASA. “[W]e have found 25 instances of these false claims on their website.”

The petition for updated information was direct and their arguments were air-tight.

The group argued that the document previously known as “The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse,” had a few inaccurate claims about cannabis.  They showed how the page was in violation of the Information Quality Act which requires that administrative agencies provide accurate information to the public. The DEA also had to respond to requests for correction of information within 60 days.
A separate petition was filed by the Department of Justice demanding that the DEA immediately update misinformation about cannabis. While neither the DEA nor the DOJ responded to ASA’s request, the document which contained the majority of the inaccurate statements was removed from their website.
But the governement is made up of more people than ever before. There is a lot of room for competing ideologies and goals to play out. A key observation of the Shafer Commission is that many of the risks of drug use are the result of drug policy/enforcement rather than from the drugs themselves.

The “gateway drug” stigma refuses to die.

A prime example of how this stigma presents itself is New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He wants to keep cannabis illegal in New York State because it “leads to other drugs and there’s a lot of truth to proof that that’s true.” He holds this view despite the results of a major study on medical marijuana conducted by the venerable Institute of Medicine, which included an examination of marijuana’s potential to lead to abusing other drugs.
The study found that “There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.” Even the DEA has gone on record to say “Little evidence supports the hypothesis that initiation of marijuana use leads to an abuse disorder with other illicit substances,” while refusing to reschedule cannabis in August of 2016.
The continuing stigma prevents meaningful reform of marijuana laws by perpetuating harmful misinformation.  A Rasmussen poll found that a large percentage of Americans believe the gateway argument. Nearly half of voters (46%) believed marijuana use leads to harder drugs. Thirty-seven percent (37%) did not see marijuana as a “gateway” drug.

Patterns in progression of drug use are strikingly regular.

Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people come across. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs used marijuana before the harder stuff. In fact, most adult users begin with alcohol and nicotine long before moving on to cannabis and other illicit drugs.
In 2006, the University of Pittsburgh released a thorough study which researchers spent 12 years putting together. They tracked a group of subjects from adolescence into adulthood and documented the initiation and progression of their drug use. The researchers reported that the gateway theory was not only wrong, but also detrimental to properly understanding and addressing drug abuse.
The myth of the Gateway effect needs to be put to rest once and for all. The more research that is conducted the clearer it becomes that cannabis use does not lead to abuse of other drugs. Some promising research has also shown that cannabis can actually help people kick the other stuff like heroine. As more and more states legalize medical and recreational marijuana, it is more important than ever to put the gateway myth to rest. Thanks for reading.
 

cann history

A History of Medical Cannabis Part 2: Modern Cannabis

In Part 1 we talked about ancient cannabis and how it has been used throughout the ages.

Today we are going to talk about modern cannabis and how it moved from prominence as a medicine to a recreational drug. Yet medical cannabis is not relegated to the ancient past. Modern medicine uses the term marijuana instead of the ancient name: cannabis but it means the same thing.
The original name can be traced back to the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides. He was a roman army doctor from around 40-90AD who traveled widely on campaigns throughout the Roman empire. He wrote the medical text that virtually all others were based on for over a thousand years and had a special entry for both male and female cannabis plants. It wasn’t until the 1930’s when the plant became known a marijuana in an effort to re-brand it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

By 1621, medical marijuana had made its way into the English Mental Health Book.

Cannabis was entered into one of the most popular medicinal textbooks from the era to treat depression. Because of the work of an Irish doctor working for a shipping company during the colonization of the new world, medical cannabis moved to the Americas.
Cannabis treatments were a staple of a professional doctors curriculum up through the industrial revolution.  Before Alaska and Hawaii were states, America had laws on the books that supported medical marijuana in all 48 states. Cannabis was not seen as a recreational drug, it was medicine with little risk of side effects.

But in 1936 all that changed.

Pressure was being placed on the U.S. by the international community to sign the International Treaty on Controlled Substances. While not directly listing cannabis as a controlled substance, the treaty forced all countries that signed to adopt similar drug policies. Propagandists later used the treaty to get cannabis banned across the developed world.
A very popular anti-marijuana campaign burned through the nation. Funded by the government and directed by the talented propagandist Larry Anslinger, “Reefer Madness” was a sensational tale about marijuana. It featured the plant ruining people’s lives through sex, insanity, and horrific acts of violence. Although Reefer Madness was a work of pure fiction,  it was accepted by a whole generation as fact with the tenacity of religious convictions. The influential power of the Reefer Madness propaganda laid the groundwork for Larry Anslinger to get cannabis banned.
Larry Anslinger was a potent propagandist that was able to convince the developed world to outright ban cannabis use, cultivation and distribution. He used a mixed media of propaganda to accomplish this. Anslinger was a master of using media and used the newspapers, radio and television to spread a web of half-truths and outright lies.
After spreading a racially motivated panic with the Reefer Madness propaganda, Anslinger convince the U.S. to pass the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Anslinger provided his political masters a new way to target their political opponents voting base. The politically motivated police force acted quickly on the new laws to target the poor.

The Marijuana Tax Stamp Act brought America Modern Cannabis.

On the day the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was enacted (Oct. 2, 1937) the FBI and Denver Colorado police raided the Lexington Hotel. They arrested a man named Samuel R. Caldwell for selling modern cannabis. He was a 58 year-old unemployed laborer. Three days later, on Oct. 5, 1937 Caldwell became the first person convicted under U.S. federal law of distributing cannabis.
In 1942, cannabis was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia. When that happened, cannabis lost the last vestiges of medical legitimacy. Because of the International Treaty on Controlled Substances, most of the other countries in the developed world were forced to enact similar rules.

Over the next decades, criminalization of cannabis continued.

As more and more regulations were heaped on medical practitioners, they became unable to prescribe cannabis. Legal penalties increased massively with the Boggs Act of 1951. It established minimum prison sentences for simple possession of cannabis. Thanks in great part to Anslinger’s work, cannabis was classified as a schedule 1 controlled substance in 1970.
Schedule 1 substances are substances no medical benefit and high risk of abuse. The controlled Substances Act of 1970 Classified Marijuana as a having “No Accepted Medical Use”. After the passing of the Substances Act, medical practitioners were barred from prescribing modern cannabis for any medication, effectively removing the oldest known medicine from a whole generation of healers across the globe.
In 1971, the Shafer Commission was created by the U.S. president to determine the merit of criminalizing cannabis. The Shafer Commission was bi-partisan and overseen by congress. President Nixon himself ordered it to determine “if the personal use of marijuana should be criminalized.” The commission came back with an answer and Nixon ignored it because he didn’t like that they believed there was no reason to scale up action against users.
In 1971 president Nixon chose to aggressively pursue action against cannabis consumers by declaring the War on Drugs. Motivated by personal prejudice political corruption, he saw marijuana as a way to get at his political opponents. He even admitted at the time that his reasons for attacking cannabis users and increasing penalties was motivated by personal directives.

Nixon acknowledged his action was not based on empirical evidence.

He increased criminalization despite the commission he put together telling him officially and unequivocally that cannabis use should not be criminalized. Over the next two years, the Nixon built a force specifically designed to scale up violence against modern cannabis users.
The Department of Drug Enforcement (DEA) was established in 1973 by merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNND) and the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) into a single agency. It comes as no surprise that the DEA continues to aggressively pursue cannabis consumers, producers and distributors to this day. They use every tool at their disposal regardless of legality or constitutionality to continue the criminalization of marijuana.
Things continued to go downhill for cannabis in the coming years. It wasn’t until 1976 that Robert Randall (who was afflicted by glaucoma) used the Common Law Doctrine of Necessity (US v. Randall) to defend himself against criminal charges of marijuana cultivation. In 1976, federal Judge James Washington made waves with his ruling. Judge Washington ruled that Randall’s use of modern cannabis constituted a ‘medical necessity’ and the case was thrown out.
Modern cannabis 2

The next milestone for modern cannabis crusaders came in the winter of 1991.

Modern cannabis took a step forward with the passing of medical marijuana reform in California. The first medical marijuana initiative was called Proposition P and was in San Francisco. It passed with an overwhelming 79% of the vote in November of 1991.
Proposition P called on the State of California and the California Medical Association to restore hemp medical to the list of available medicines in California, and to stop penalizing physicians for prescribing hemp for medical purposes. It only effected San Francisco but the cogs of bureaucracy had been activated. It would take another 5 years for legislation to go statewide.
Voters in California passed the first statewide medical marijuana initiative on November 5, 1996. Known as Proposition 215, it permitted patients and their primary caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, muscle spasms, migraines, and several other disorders. It also protected doctors from state sponsored punishment if they recommended marijuana to their patients.

The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.

In September of 1998, the House of Representatives debated a resolution called H.J.Res. 117. They passed H.J.Res 117 at the same time Oregon, Washington and Alaska provided their medical marijuana programs. In H.J.Res. 117, Congress declared support for the existing federal drug approval process.
They decide not to reschedule marijuana despite the overwhelming evidence coming forth that it should be decriminalized. While cannabis is classified as having no medical benefit, the United States Department of Health and Human Services) currently holds a patent on medical cannabis.
Patent No. 6630507 covers the use of cannabinoids for treating a wide range of diseases and was submitted to the patent office in 1999. The Department of Health and Human Services was awarded the patent in 2003. Yet the Department of Health is not the only regulatory agency that has chosen to abandon science, compassion and reason.
Modern Cannabis

In 2002, the FDA decided how to use modern cannabis in a study.

They decided that shipping 300 pre-rolled joints to patients in metal canisters was the best way to judge modern cannabis. The material was frequently two or more years old upon receipt by patients and a close inspection of the contents of NIDA-supplied cannabis cigarettes revealed them to be a crude mixture of leaf with abundant stem and seeds.
The study concluded that “cannabis smoking, even of a crude, low-grade product, provides effective symptomatic relief of pain, muscle spasms, and intraocular pressure elevations…” and that “clinical cannabis patients are able to reduce or eliminate other prescription medicines and their accompanying side effects.” The FDA report was ignored by those in power and cannabis remained a schedule 1 controlled substance despite the undeniable evidence.
The DEA has still not reclassified cannabis. It remains a holistic herb used throughout time as a medicine that current U.S. legislators are violently opposed to. While international progress has been made with the UK rescheduling cannabis to Class B and the Netherlands also making great strides in medicinal research, the U.S. still struggles to come into the light. Use of scientific reasoning is about to get even harder for the U.S. government as President Trump decides who will take the reigns of power. Yet his choice of Jim O’Neill to head the FDA (who openly supports cannabis legalization) gives modern cannabis hope for the future. Only time will tell. Thanks for reading.
Featured image: shutterstock

cbd wr

CBD: How Cannabidiol (CBD) is Natures Best Healing Compound

What is CBD?

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a naturally occurring compound found in cannabis plants.Scientific research over the last few decades has shown that Cannabidiol has dozens of medical benefits. Cannabidiol is one of over 60 compounds found in cannabis.  Both THC and CBD belong to a class of molecules called cannabinoids.
Of the known cannabinoid compounds, CBD and THC are usually present in the highest concentrations, and are therefore the most recognized and studied. The difference between CBD and THC comes down to how they interact with the cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptors. Cannabidiol inhibits the interaction of CB-1 receptors throughout the body with a major focus on receptors in the central nervous system.
CBD Flower

How does CBD work in the body?

Cannabinoid receptors are cell membrane receptors  that contain transmembrane spanning properties. Cannabinoid receptors are activated by three groups of ligands (a molecule that binds to another molecule):  endocannabinoids that are produced inside the mammalian body, cannabinoids produced in plants and synthetic cannabinoids. Because CB-1 receptors bind with all three types of cannabinoids, one source can be supplemented for the other to provide medical benefit to patients.
The endocannabinoid system is a vast network of cell receptor proteins and serves many functions. CB-1 receptors are heavily concentrated in the central nervous system. Others types of cannabinoid receptors are found all over the body. They’re in every humans skin, digestive tract, and even in their reproductive organs. All of the endocannabinoids and plant cannabinoids bind to fatty compounds in the body. The binding properties of cannabinoids are why THC and CBD remain in a person’s system for so long.

How does CBD work in the brain?

Cannabidiol has low binding affinity for CB1 receptors. THC binds well with CB1 cannabinoid receptors but CBD does not. This is why one (THC) will cause a high and the other (CBD) will not. While this makes Cannabidiol a bad choice for recreational users, it is a significant advantage for use as a medicine. The high associated with cannabis is generally considered a side effect.
Since health professionals prefer treatments with minimal side effects. CBD is seen by most medical professionals as preferable to THC. CBD is non-psychoactive because it doesn’t act on the same pathways as THC. These pathways, called CB1 receptors, are highly concentrated in the brain and are responsible for the mind-altering effects of THC.
CBD Flower 1

What does CBD do?

The fact that Cannabidiol-rich cannabis is non-psychoactive or less psychoactive than THC-dominant strains makes it an appealing option for patients who want to avoid the stereotypical feelings associated with consuming cannabis.
Scientific and clinical research underscores Cannabidiol’s potential as a treatment for a wide range of conditions. People looking for relief from inflammation, pain, anxiety, psychosis, seizures, and other conditions without disconcerting feelings of lethargy find Cannabidiol to be an effective treatment.
Conditions including arthritis, diabetes, alcoholism, MS, chronic pain, schizophrenia, PTSD, depression, antibiotic-resistant infections, epilepsy, and other neurological disorders find the most relief from treatments. This is because CBD has demonstrable neuroprotective and neurogenic effects along with anti-cancer properties. These properties are currently being investigated at several academic research centers around the world.

How does CBD treat all these health issues?

The biggest distinction between CBD vs. THC comes down to a basic difference in how each one interacts with cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptors. THC binds well with CB1 cannabinoid receptors while CBD does not. Think of it like an electrical plug connecting to an outlet.
A THC molecule is perfectly sized to connect with CB1 receptors. When that connection happens, THC stimulates those CB1 receptors like turning on a switch. THC works to activate those CB1 receptors.Cannabidiol works in a different way. It doesn’t act directly to activate or suppress CB1 receptors. Instead, it acts to suppress the CB1-activating qualities of a cannabinoid like THC.  So while THC turns on CB-1 receptors like sticking a key in an outlet, CBD blocks the outlet.

If CBD is so good, why isn’t it more mainstream?

Even though CBD shows great promise as a medicine, it remains illegal in most of the world. CBD is classified as a Schedule I drug (right beside THC) in the United States and a Schedule II drug in Canada and the UK.
The US government has been studying CBD for a while and fund most of the science going on stateside due to the difficulties associated in researching a schedule 1 substance. Even with the challenges, intrepid researchers have identified dozens of conditions that can be treated or cured using Cannabidiol.
A team of researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center, led by Dr. Sean McAllister, has stated that they hope to begin trials on CBD as a breast cancer therapy. Due to the challenges of navigating the FDA, they are fighting an uphill battle.

If CBD is great as medicine, why aren’t more drug companies using it?

All is not dark for CBD research. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a request for a clinical trial of a CBD based drug. The drug in question is a pharmaceutical version of CBD used to treat children afflicted with rare forms of epilepsy. The drug is called Epidiolex and is made by GW Pharmaceuticals. GW Pharmaceuticals also makes another cannabis-based drug called Sativex.
Even with approval of trials for Cannabidiol based meds, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) made it clear that marijuana-based extract is still considered a Schedule I drug under federal law. They made sure to say in a Dec. 2016 address that the ban includes CBD oils and other types of CBD-rich extracts.

What does the future of CBD look like?

In general, far more research is needed to figure out all of the effects cannabis has on our bodies. But, to say that our overall understanding of CBD is “lacking” would be an understatement. In the midst of medical and recreational legalization happening in the US state by state, the federal stance on cannabis remains staunchly opposed. While the UK classifies CBD as a schedule 2 substance, the US still tightly holds to its schedule 1 status of all things cannabis.
A pharmaceutical version of Cannabidiolwas recently developed by a drug company based in the UK. The UK based company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is now funding clinical trials on Cannabidiol as a treatment for schizophrenia and certain types of epilepsy through the significantly easier UK process.
Only time will tell if cannabis will become a mainstream medical tool in the future. With political pressure and overwhelming public support for legalization, there has been a lot of gains in recent years. As legislation moves cannabis out of the darkness and into the limelight, government agencies like the FDA will have to reevaluate how they have classified cannabis. Thanks for reading.
 

mcanna

A History of Medical Cannabis Part 1: Ancient Cannabis

Medical Cannabis is known by many names.

Whether you call it; ganja, weed, dope, grass, or the medical cannabis, it all means the same thing. Cannabis is one of the earliest plants known to be harvested by man. In fact, the oldest human artifact on record is an ancient sandal made from cannabis fibers known as hemp. The fibers of the cannabis plant were used in the oldest civilizations like Rome, Assyria, Egypt and China.
Some of the oldest known medicine was also made from cannabis. The earliest record of medical marijuana use was in 2900 BC by Chinese Emperor Fu. He and a majority of his citizens used the herb for medicinal purposes. From treating headaches and nausea to acting as an aphrodisiac, the ancient Chinese were pioneers in cannabis research.

Over the centuries, marijuana was used medicinally all over the world.

Many festivities and religious ceremonies involved cannabis as well. Cannabis was so important to ancient religious rites that it was an integral part of many rites including the process of anointing. Early Christians were well aware of how cannabis worked and used it in many of their most sacred rituals.
Christians inherited many of their religious practices directly from the Hebrews. The word Christ actually means ‘the anointed one’ and many scholars believe that Christ was anointed with chrism, a cannabis-based oil. The ancient recipe for this oil recorded in Exodus (30:22-23), included over 9 pounds of cannabis flower which the Hebrews called kaneh-bosem.
The Hebrews extracted the cannabis into about 11 pints of olive oil. This cannabis concoction was then mixed with a variety of other herbs and spices in very specific ways. The mixture was normally used in anointing and rituals that would allow the priests and prophets to commune with the divine.

Cannabis was used by more than just the ancient Chinese and Hebrews though.

India has a deep and long history with the plant.  Ancient chefs created a drink known as bhang out of cannabis paste, milk and spices. Shiva is said to have loved the drink so much that he took the title “Lord of Bhang”. Bhang has remained a medical remedy/ preferred beverage in India for centuries and is prepared there to this day. Zoroaster is also said to have listed cannabis as the most important of 10,000 medicinal plants.
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission described the history and culture of cannabis in India: “To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in the bhang leaf… To see in a dream the leaves, plant, or water of bhang is lucky… No good thing can come to the man who treads underfoot the holy bhang leaf. A longing for bhang foretells happiness.”
Cannabis has been popular in India since the beginning of recorded history and is often drank. Nuts and spices like; almonds, pistachios, poppy seeds, pepper, ginger and sugar are mixed with cannabis and boiled in milk. Yogurt can also be used instead of milk. While popular in the east, bhang has never caught on with western pallets the same way.

Romans used Medical Cannabis as well.

The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides from around 40-90AD was a Roman army doctor who traveled widely on campaigns throughout the Roman empire. He studied many plants, gathering his knowledge and assembling it into a book he titled De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters).
Published around 70AD, De Materia Medica became the most important medical text for the next 1500 years. Virtually all medical texts were based off of this single work. Within its pages were contained the most important and useful plants known to mad. Included in the tome was cannabis, both kannabis emeros and kannabis agria, the male and female respectively. Dioscorides stated bluntly that the plant used in the making of rope also produced a juice that treated earache and suppress sexual longing.

Even the Egyptians were into medical cannabis.

In the ancient world, Egypt was a center of trade and information. Their position at the mouth of the Nile provided a base of strength for millennia. Part of that strength was advanced medical techniques that were passed down through the use of writing. Ancient Egyptian doctors and pharmacologists would use papyrus to record their work.
One of the oldest texts to survive to modernity is the 2nd century Fayyum Medical Papyrus. This ancient Egyptian text is believed to contain the earliest record of cannabis as an ingredient in cancer medicine. While they didn’t record enough for us to assess the successes of ancient Egyptian cancer treatments, cannabis continues to receive interest as a cancer therapy today.
Cannabis pollen was even found on the mummy of Ramesses II. He was a powerful Pharaoh who died in 1213 BC. It is unclear how the cannabis was used but prescriptions for cannabis in Ancient Egypt also included treatment for the eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas.

Cannabis is actually new to the Americas.

By the late 1700s, American medical journals began recommending hemp seeds and roots for the treatment of inflamed skin, incontinence and venereal disease. But it was Irish doctor William O’Shaughnessy who first popularized marijuana’s medical use in England and America.
O’Shaughnessy was a physician with the British East India Company during the years leading up to the American Revolution. He found marijuana eased the pain of rheumatism and was helpful against discomfort and nausea. Patients were prescribed cannabis most for cases of rabies, cholera and tetanus. Truly, Dr. O’shaughnessy was an integral part of the rise of medical cannabis in Europe and the Americas.

In the age of scientific innovation, cannabis was in medical texts.

In 1621, medical marijuana made its way into the English Mental Health Book, the most popular medicinal textbook from the time. Of all the things it could have suggested, it recommends marijuana to treat depression, the same as modern scientific research has shown.
Early Settlers had cannabis but mainly used it for fiber. The Jamestown settlers brought the marijuana plant specialized to produce fiber commonly known as hemp, to North America in 1611.
Throughout the colonial period, hemp fiber was an important export. By 1762, cannabis cultivation can become so common that Virginia awarded bounties for hemp culture and manufacture along with imposing penalties on those who did not produce it.

It wasn’t until the 1900’s that cannabis lost its medical, economic and spiritual prominence.

With the invention of television and the consolidation of media during the 1900s, cannabis moved from medical staple to outcast with surprising speed. Due to the efforts of Larry Anslinger and his associates, medical cannabis was stripped from medical texts and scientists were effectively banned from studying it.
Top image: Bigstock